C++ and real languages

**QuantumPete** · 09-04-2008

Originally Posted by anon

Code:

#define weil while 
...

Actually "weil" means "because", you want "während".
I knew someone once, who developed his own preprocessor that would replace his german keywords with the english equivalent. But to be honest those 20 or so frequently-used keywords aren't that hard to learn.

QuantumPete

**cpjust** · 09-04-2008

Originally Posted by Stonehambey

Personally I don't think it makes any difference. The language is C++ (or whatever). Go up to an English speaking person who isn't a programmer and ask them what the 'for' or 'virtual' keywords are for and he wouldn't be able to tell you. The fact that he speaks English doesn't give him any kind of advantage here. Ultimately, learning a few English keywords is trivial when trying to learn how the language works and how to program in general.

Comments are slightly different, I imagine you would write these with your target audience in mind. If the majority of those can use English, then it's only logical to write your comments in English.

Oh I would definitely disagree with that.
Since I'm fluent in English, when I see a function that I've never seen before, I can usually make a pretty accurate guess as to what it does just from the name. If functions looked more like this:

Code:

fdfasd( "%d fdsjkjlkjsf %s!", ruios, vbios );
tjkeio( ruios++ );
iowmdiflw::fuivmwi fsjis( vbios );
...

Then I'd probably just give up and go work at McDonalds.

**robwhit** · 09-04-2008

Originally Posted by anon

And of course, if you really want to (feature on TDWTF yourself), it should be very simple to localize all the keywords (it is undefined behaviour, though):

Code:

#define wenn if 
#define für for
#define weil while 
...

Probably won't work for standard libraries, but perhaps you could create wrappers for everything?

Why would it be UB?

**anon** · 09-04-2008

I was probably wrong, I though about redefining keywords (such as #define private public) which this is not.

**lruc** · 09-04-2008

cpjust I love your idea. If I could I would totally abolish English and replace it with an improved version of that but of course it's not that simple. I also guess I wasn't the first person to thing of a new language. Just because something has been stadard for some time (english) doesn't mean that it shouldn't be replaced(e.g. Windows).

**~~master5001~~** · 09-04-2008

I notice that MSVC 2008 accepts pretty much any char in variable names. It is not very portable, but on the other hand, when you are moving an equation directly from paper to code, it can be very clear as to what is going on.

**Elysia** · 09-05-2008

AFAIK, the standard only allows english chars a-z and numbers, not any other chars in variables. It's a shame, says I.

**CornedBee** · 09-05-2008

Not quite. The standard guarantees that these work (plus the underscore). However, it says that it is implementation-defined whether, and which, other characters are allowed in variable names.

Thus, any code that goes outside the guaranteed range is not portable, but not necessarily invalid either.

**Elysia** · 09-05-2008

Well, that pretty much guarantees that the use of any non-english character and numbers in variable names is undefined, as many other things.

**CornedBee** · 09-05-2008

Not undefined. You either get a compiler error, or it works.

**Stonehambey** · 09-05-2008

Originally Posted by cpjust

Oh I would definitely disagree with that.
Since I'm fluent in English, when I see a function that I've never seen before, I can usually make a pretty accurate guess as to what it does just from the name. If functions looked more like this:

Code:

fdfasd( "%d fdsjkjlkjsf %s!", ruios, vbios );
tjkeio( ruios++ );
iowmdiflw::fuivmwi fsjis( vbios );
...

Then I'd probably just give up and go work at McDonalds.

Fair enough, I didn't really consider stuff like the STL and pre-existing functions, in which case a knowledge of English would give you an advatage

**CornedBee** · 09-05-2008

The standard C library being an exception

**~~master5001~~** · 09-05-2008

I prefer to only use irregular characters for personal applications that I only plan on compiling for my benefit. As I mentioned, its nice to have code that looks like:

Example:

Code:

∆t = +(t[0] - t[1]);
ө = atan(∆t) + 1;

But these sorts of lines of code don't translate well across all compilers. However, if you are taking something from paper and applying it directly to your program, this makes life so much cleaner.

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